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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Things for the novice to know about Facebook

There has been a lot of discussion recently about your privacy on Facebook (Facebook Privacy Policy). Even though Facebook has some of your data you can still control who see's it. I find it amazing that so many people don't pay attention to their privacy online, but would never do the same things in real life. I know my tech savvy people know this, but your parents or Aunt Betty may not.The first mistake people make is not changing their privacy settings to friends onlyfor everything. Do you want someone in Twain looking at your son or daughters birthday pictures from last weekend. I think not.

Next take your birthday year off your profile. Leaving the day and month is fine so your friends can wish you well. Leaving your birth year could lead the right person down the path to hacking your life.

If you have your boss or supervisor on your profile you also have the option to block who sees what information you post. If you have a certain group you want to share a post with make it specifically for those individuals.

Simply log into Facebook click on Home-Friends-New List (Video Above) . Put the people in this list you talk to most often. Then before you post make sure you select that group so only those people see it. Which brings me to something that should seem obvious, but people do it. Don't add people to your friends list you don't know period.

I made a dummy account on Facebook and added it to my friends list. Well others on my friends list started inviting my fake profile to be there friend. Would you let a stranger in your house and let them see your vacation pictures, tell them your birthday and that your going to be out of town this weekend?You don't earn reward points for how many friends you have and unless you are apart of a particular group like a church or club there is really no reason IMO to have 1,000 friends on Facebook. Do you really have a personal connection with that many people? If your a Blogger or have a business then create a Facebook Fan Page, but keep your personal life separate.

If you get a strange email from Facebook or a link on your wall talking about check out my new video! Or something along those lines Don't click on it! There are a few viruses going around that will take over your computer and try to sell you a program to fix it. They will also spam everyone on your email account if you have left it logged in a the time. On a side note if you don't have Microsoft Security Essentials download it. It's a great virus protection program and it's free. If you do fall victim checkout my previous post on Safe Boot Mode to correct the issue.

Lifehacker reported yesterday on Reclaim Privacy and today it was featured on CNN. Reclaim Privacy is a nice way to check and see if your Facebook settings are up to par, and they tell you what changes you should modify.

Last but not least if you don't want the world to know something then don't make it public because certain sites allow you to search people things post on Facebook. Facebook is a great way to share and communicate with family and friends, but take a military approach and make your information available only on a need to know basics.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about your privacy on Facebook ( Facebook Privacy Policy) . Even though Facebook has some of yo...

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